Intellectuals and World War I

This volume was planned as an academic and methodological exchange of views between historians and other scholars dealing with the social history of World War I in East-Central Europe. Its main aim is an attempt to answer the question of how the conflict affected intellectuals in certain clearly defined aspects (family, education, religion, gender, sexuality). Their wartime experi­ences were shaped by their whereabouts, everyday life, standard of living, and, in the case of soldiers, the type of military service.

It also takes a closer look at members of the intelligentsia who fought in the trenches, those who worked in propaganda, or those who held civil service posts in the belligerent countries. It remains an important question whether the cooperation of intellectuals and scholars with the war apparatus was conscious, voluntary, whether it was a form of social mission carried out for the state or nation, or an attempt by the governments and rulers to use the “naive clerks” ­instrumentally. The book also offers a reflection on the intellectuals’ stance towards militarism and the outbreak of war: their reactions, thoughts, predictions, and the way they interpreted the war events for society. It seeks to find out how the war was conceptualized by intellectuals, how it was commented upon, and how the postwar reality was conceived.

The editors have managed to win the collaboration of an international group of recognized experts from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovenia, the U.S.A., and Ukraine. The authors' reflections revolve around national discourses on the meaning of World War I in different parts of central and eastern Europe, the work of the intelligentsia for world superpowers and particular national groups, the collaboration between intellectuals (academics, writers, artists, journalists), and the construction of new visions of political and historical structures. What runs through the whole book is the motif of the measurable effects of the war (both in the social and individual perspectives), how the World War I generation saw their achievements wasted, and whether wartime made their dreams come true and let them find their place in the new postwar reality. Maria Stinia, Jagiellonian University in Krakow

About the Author

TOMASZ PUDŁOCKI is associate professor in the Institute of History, Jagiellonian University, Krakow. He specializes in the history of Galicia from the sociocultural point of view, as well as the history of women and intellectual history. His latest book was published on Polish-British intellectual connections in the interwar period (Ambasadorzy idei. Wkład intelektualistów w promowanie pozytywnego wizerunku Polski w Wielkiej Brytanii w latach 1918-1939).

KAMIL RUSZAŁA received his Ph.D. at the Faculty of History of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (dissertation: Galician Refugees During the First World War in the Habsburg Empire). He specializes in East Central European History in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially the late Habsburg Empire, the First World War, refugees and internees, war remembrance, war graves and cemeteries, experiences of soldiers, and societies during the war. He is the author and editor of books dealing with the First World War, including Wielka Wojna w małym mieście. Gorlice w latach 1914-1918, Kraków 2015 (The Great War in a small town. Gorlice in the years 1914-1918); as editor: Bitwa pod Gorlicami. Studia z perspektywy stulecia, (The battle of Gorlice. Centenary perspectives), Doświadczenia żołnierskie Wielkiej Wojny, (The Soldiers’ Experience of the First World War, together with Michał Baczkowski).

Subjects

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